After an amazing time in Otovalo and a long bus ride, we arrived at the Iyarina lodge last night. We couldn’t see much because it was dark, but walking to our rooms through the trees we could tell it was an amazing place. We had tacos for dinner, which tasted so good, and then finished off the night by the fire. Last night was my favorite sleeping experience so far. We have queen sized beds and instead of windows, our room had a large screen so we could hear all of the jungle noises outside.
In the morning I had my first ever coffee, which tasted a lot better than I expected. We also had eggs and bread for breakfast. Something I have really enjoyed this whole trip is the fresh juice we have with every meal. It tastes so good and is super refreshing. After breakfast, we all sat in the pavilion with the BYU students and listened to Tod, the owner of the lodge, tell us about the history of the lodge and the area we are in. My favorite part was when he told us some very interesting stories about missionaries after WWII and their contact with the tribes here.
After listening to Tod, it was ceramics time. We sat down with some of the women of the lodge, and used clay to make pottery. This was one of my favorite things we’ve done so far because everyone’s creations were unique and it was a lot of fun. After this, we walked around the land and inspected the vegetation and wild life. I was very fascinated by the amount of different insects and plants there are here. We even saw monkeys! Then, we went into the butterfly building with Tod where they keep caterpillars and freeze butterflies to send to museums and conservatories in Ecuador and also other countries.
After an amazing spaghetti lunch, all went to the pavilion again to listen to Skip teach us about chocolate and some facts and statistics. We also learned more about cacao because after the lesson, we traveled to another part of the jungle to see cacao. They used machetes to open them and we got to eat the seeds. I could’ve done this all day, they tasted so good. They tasted like a very sweet candy, but better than what you expect. We took some fun pictures then headed back to the lodge. Today was super fun and I can’t wait for the rest of our trip.
